It seems to teach that the place of their error was for two reasons. The first was that in becoming priests, they erred in their service, and this ( is implied in the text) beginning by saying they were 'sons of Aaron'; the two of them (thought) they were great in deeds and should be weighted like Moses and Aaron [Torat Kohanim Achrei Mot 53]. And as the Zohar teaches, they were on a high spiritual level in the realm of deeds, hence they were called ('sons of Aaron') Nadav and Abihu, and this trait is not so for Elazar and Itamar (the Torah does not refer to them as 'sons of Aaron'); they too are 'sons of Aaron', but are not at the spiritual level themselves that Nadav and Abihu were. So too we find this explanation where (the Torah) says

וישימו עליה קטורת, they placed incense on it (the censer). The Torah does not write that they placed the incense "on them," as it had described the act of placing fire on the censer in the plural, i.e. ויתנו בהן lumping the censers together. The reason the Torah distinguishes in its description is to emphasise that the crucial part of their error was the fire which did not originate on the altar.

זדה, אשר לא צוה אותם, strange fire, which He had not commanded them. The words "which He had not commanded them" define the nature of the strangeness of the fire. It is possible that if these two sons of Aaron had taken the fire for their incense from the altar G'd would not have minded so much; it is also possible that G'd would have minded for a different reason; at any rate, the sin consisted in their doing something on their own initiative which G'd had not commanded them.

וימותו לפני השם. They died in the presence of the Lord. The words: "in the presence of the Lord" may be intended to inspire fear and reverence for the Tabernacle in the people who witnessed that even people who entered in order to offer the offering dearest to G'd, incense, had died as a result of doing something unauthorised. There is also an allusion here that their death was due to something they had done previously and which involved the presence of G'd. I refer to Exodus 24,10 where these two sons were reported as having beheld G'd (compare Vayikra Rabbah 20,10 and G'd was reported there as not punishing the "nobles of Israel" at that time). These "nobles" were Nadav and Avihu.

הוא אשר דבר השם, this is what G'd has said: etc. The word הוא needs further analysis. Another word which seems peculiar is the word לאמור. This word gives the impression that Moses had already been commanded to communicate this idea that G'd is most exacting with those near and dear to Him. If Moses had been instructed to communicate this concept, why had he not done so before? Perhaps this error of Moses was similar to the one we described in connection with Moses' failure to communicate to the people all the details about the manna on the Sabbath, as mentioned in Exodus 16,23 where we also find the expression הוא אשר דבר השם. We had supplied sufficient reasons why Moses at the time did not communicate the laws about the Sabbath to the Israelites in advance, basing ourselves on the absence of the word לאמור in that context. In this instance then, why had Moses not told Aaron of this concept sooner?

Our sages in Torat Kohanim on our verse describe Aaron as in despair accusing both himself and his sons as having sinned and having been punished for it. When Moses heard this, he entered Aaron's tent and tried to put his mind at ease by telling him that G'd had told him when he was on Mount Sinai that in the future He, G'd, would sanctify the Tabernacle by means of persons of great stature. At the time, Moses said, he had thought that G'd referred either to himself or to Aaron. Now, in view of what had just occurred, it had become clear to him that both Nadav and Avihu were of greater stature than either he or Aaron seeing G'd had selected those two to sanctify His Tabernacle. Thus far Torat Kohanim. Another approach may be this: while it is true that Moses had been told about this concept at Sinai, he had not understood in which context this lesson would assume practical significance. Only now, when Nadav and Avihu had died under peculiar circumstances did he, Moses, realise what G'd had meant to tell him at that time when He said to him: בקרובי אקדש, "I will be sanctified by means of those who are close to Me." Moses told Aaron: "the only reason your sons had to die was to glorify the name of the Lord." This is how he suddenly understood the words in Exodus 29,43: ונועדתי שמה לבני ישראל ונקדש בכבודי, "there I will meet with the children of Israel and there My glory shall be sanctified." As soon as Aaron heard that the two sons of his who had died were ידועי השם, based on Exodus 29,43, he remained silent and did not utter a lament.

According to the first approach the word הוא has to be understood thus: Seeing Aaron was saddened by his interpretation of the reason his sons had died, Moses corrected him by saying הוא "this is the reason your sons died," i.e. because they were too close to G'd not because they had become estranged from G'd. Accordingly, the word הוא refers to the cause. According to the second approach to our verse we have to understand the word הוא as a reference to the comment G'd had made to Moses without specifying His meaning. Moses said that now he understood הוא, i.e. "it," the "it" being what G'd had told him about being sanctified by men of stature. As to the meaning of the word לאמור, Moses now understood that when G'd had told him that He would be sanctified ונקדש בכבודי, you may understand this as לאמור, "to say," בקרובי אקדש. This takes care of the various problems in the text we have raised. There remains the difficulty why Moses had failed to communicate the concept of בקרובי אקדש sooner. We also need to understand the deeper meaning of why-according to Torat Kohanim -Moses did not practice his customary humility when saying to Aaron: "I thought G'd referred either to me or to you." We would have expected Moses to have said: "I thought G'd referred to either you or me." Why did he mention himself first?

We have to remember that we are dealing with an event which contained two vastly different elements. 1) The lesson that Nadav and Avihu were men of great stature. 2) The fact that they died while in the process of committing a sin. When Moses told Aaron that he had understood what G'd had meant when He spoke about being sanctified by men of great stature, men close to Him, he did not necessarily refer to the first element. If Moses had only related to G'd having spoken about people of great stature being the ones by means of whom He would be sanctified, the fact that he mentioned himself first would indeed have to be interpreted as somewhat presumptuous. However, seeing that Moses added that he had now become aware that G'd had considered Nadav and Avihu as greater than himself or even Aaron, it became clear that Moses had not meant to be presumptuous at all. Also, if the major aspect of Moses' new understanding had been who was supposed to be the victim in terms of giving up his life so that G'd would be glorified, it would hardly have been appropriate for Moses to volunteer this honour for Aaron. This is why he mentioned himself first. On the contrary, when one speaks of a possible tragedy befalling either oneself or the person with whom one discusses such an eventuality, good manners require that one mentions oneself as a possible victim first. Moses phrased the whole matter as something concerning which he had previously entertained some doubt.

There remains the difficulty that according to what Moses told Aaron only one person had to die in order to demonstrate to the people that G'd is sanctified by someone close to Him. Why did both sons die? After all, according to Moses' own words he had only been in doubt which one would be the victim. He never considered that there could be two or more victims to demonstrate the point G'd wanted to make. Besides, whence did Moses know that Nadav and Avihu were of greater stature than either Aaron or himself? Seeing that G'd had mentioned one person as dying, it is plausible that that one person was of greater stature than either Moses or Aaron. Why would I assume that both were greater? In fact it seems strange that two had to take the place of one, i.e. either Moses or Aaron? If so they were not greater than Moses or Aaron individually. One can certainly not argue that in this case Solomon's rule (Kohelet 4,9) applies that טובים השנים מן האחד, "that two are better than one?"

I believe what Torat Kohanim had in mind is that when G'd said to Moses ונקדש בכבודי that the Tabernacle would be sanctified by a person who is considered as of great stature by Me (G'd), Moses realised that one of the צדיקים, righteous persons, would die. However, he assumed that according to the plain meaning of the words that G'd referred to an outstandingly righteous person (singular). This was the reason he was not sure whether the victim would be either himself or Aaron. Now that he saw that two men had died he re-evaluated the meaning of what G'd had told him. He now realised that when G'd had spoken about ונקדש בכבודי, the meaning was not that it required a single person whose death would confer glory on G'd and the Taberncale, but that G'd had referred to something of a more comprehenive nature. This is why Moses re-phrased what G'd had told him and he said to Aaron בקרובי אקדש, "by means of those who are close to Me (plural) I will be sanctified." He added that G'd had said: ועל פני כל העם אקדש; "and I will be seen to have been glorified in front of all the nation." This meant that when G'd had previously spoken of כבודי, My Glory, the meaning was "on account of My Glory." If we accept this interpretation G'd never applied the singular as applying to the צדיקים. The word ונקדש is a collective term referring to whatever righteous will be the instrument by which G'd's Glory is sanctified. The proof that this had indeed been G'd's meaning was the fact that two people died. Moses said "this is what He had said" in order to console Aaron. The word לאמור means that Moses now understood that he had to communicate, i.e. explain G'd's meaning as being: "I will be sanctified by those who are close to Me." The principal reason for the word לאמור was to forestall any other erroneous interpretation of what G'd had in mind in Exodus 29,43.

It is also possible that Moses had already understood G'd correctly originally; he had realised that there were actually three possibilities. Either several people would die, or he himself or Aaron would die and thereby demonstrate G'd's principle of ונקדש בכבודי, i.e. the same as בקרובי אקדש. When Torat Kohanim quotes Moses as having said to Aaron that he had thought that either he or Aaron would be chosen to demonstrate the principle in question, Moses meant that originally he had entertained three doubts about who would be the people chosen for this kind of martyrdom. He had now learned which of the three possibilities was the correct one.

There still remains one difficulty. How could Moses have been certain that he had interpreted G'd's words correctly? Perhaps the combined merits of Nadav and Avihu equalled that of either Moses or Aaron and that is why both of them had to die to demonstrate the principle of בקרובי אקדש? This latter supposition is quite untenable. The whole purpose of G'd allowing those who were close to Him to become the victims of the principle בקרובי אקדש was to inspire sufficient reverence in the people not to treat the sanctity of the Tabernacle lightly. Once the people had observed that G'd had taken up residence in the Tabernacle, as it were, they would begin to take His presence for granted and not relate to it with the necessary degree of reverence. The more highly placed the individual Israelite, the more likely that he would feel so familiar with his G'd that he would become guilty of a trespass. The people most likely to make such an error were the spiritual elite of the people, among them Nadav and Avihu. As a result these people would enter the Sanctuary at will whereas the lesser individuals would keep their distance as required. The result of such considerations would be that the spiritual leaders would be less respectul towards the sanctity of the Tabernacle than their counterparts the ordinary Israelite. In order to prevent such a situation from developing, G'd had to demonstrate by what happened to Nadav and Avihu that He was especially mindful of His honour when it came to the elite in order for the common people not to ever lack in reverence for the Tabernacle. If we were to accept that Moses or Aaron individually were more outstanding than either Nadav or Avihu, G'd would have failed to demonstrate His principle seeing He had excluded both Moses and Aaron from the restriction the principle of ונקדש בכבודי was to teach the people. G'd demonstrated the principle of בקרובי אקדש by literally applying it to the people who represented the elite of the elite. The death of Nadav and Avihu demonstrated that nobody, Aaron and Moses included, could treat the Tabernacle as such familiar ground that they were allowed to enter it at will. The suggestion that only Nadav and Avihu combined represented greater stature than either Aaron or Moses is rejected by the author who explains that if you have a single diamond of ten carats, such a diamond does not become relatively inferior because someone else has two diamonds the combined weight of which is eleven carats.

ראשיכם אל תפרעו; "do not let the hair of your head grow wild." The Torah warns that if the people at large were to do the same as the priests, i.e. trim their hair while in mourning for a close relative, G'd would become angry. There are differences in the manner ordinary Israelites mourn their dead and in the manner in which priests charged with serving the Lord do this. Whereas the priests are not allowed to let their hair grow wild, they are obligated to rend their garments when hearing of the death of a close relative. Perhaps, in this instance, the rules applied were those we apply when the president of the Supreme Court dies; at such a time all of Israel are commanded to rend their garments as a sign of mourning (Moed Katan 22). In view of the opinion that Nadav and Avihu were of greater stature than even Moses and Aaron, it was certainly appropriate for the whole nation to mourn their deaths.

ואחיכם כל בית ישראל יבכו, "and your brethren the whole house of Israel will weep, etc." This is a מצוה, a desirable act; failure to do so will not arouse G'd's anger. The Torah is particular to write אשר שרף השם. This may best be understood in accordance with a statement in Shabbat 105 that anyone who weeps and mourns another person' death has his own sins forgiven and will not have cause to weep [for a tragedy in his immediate family. Ed.]. This thought is alluded to in the words אשר שרף, "He had burned." If the Israelites were to weep for the death of Nadav and Avihu now, there would be no future burning to be wept for. The words ולא תמותו ועל כל העדה יקצוף "so that you will not die and G'd will be angry at the whole congregation" mean, that when the righteous die G'd's anger is unleashed against the whole of Israel. The reason is that the righteous by their very existence had kept G'd's anger against Israel in check while they were alive. The death of priests is especially apt to result in G'd's anger becoming manifest as it was the task of the priest to assuage G'd's anger by means of the Temple service he performed while alive.

דרוש דרש משה; Moses kept asking for, etc. Personally, I think that Moses had not yet decided to permit consumption of the meat of that sin-offering. Proof of this is the fact that he had not told the priests exactly what to do as he had done in the case of the meal-offering concerning which he had said (verse 12) "take what is left over of the meal-offering and eat it!" If it had been clear to Moses that the priests (i.e. the bereaved family of Nadav and Avihu) were to eat the meat in their present emotional state of being אוננים he himself would have told them to do so. Should you argue that Moses had assumed as a matter of fact that by telling Aaron and his remaining sons to eat the left-over parts of the meal-offering, that they would do the same with the sin-offering, then why did he enquire about the meat of the sin-offering? Why would it even have occurred to him that maybe Aaron and his sons had not eaten that meat? Therefore we must assume that Moses had left the matter of the meat of the sin-offering in abeyance, seeing he himself was not certain as to the correct procedure to be followed. It had been clear to Moses that the law applicable to the meal-offering which was a one-time affair and concerning which he had received clear instructions from G'd (verse 12) was similar to that of the male-goat offered by Nachshon (the first of the offerings by the princes which occurred on that day) which was also a one-time offering. He was not at all sure whether he could make an inference from the laws applicable to those offerings to the sin-offerings offered on the New Moon seeing that was a regular offering to be presented every New Moon for all future generations. We may therefore understand the words דרוש דרש that Moses was still busy researching the applicable הלכה. The repetition of the words is a hint that it could have either of two הלכות, rulings. The reason Moses was angry was not because Aaron and his sons had done wrong but because they had taken it upon themselves to decide the issue without asking him. It did not matter that at that time Moses would not yet have known what to answer them if they enquired. Even though Moses eventually (verse 18) told Aaron and his sons to eat that meat in accordance with his previous instructions, this only meant that Moses told them to apply the same ruling as G'd had told him to apply to the eating of the meal-offering. Torat Kohanim understands the repetition of the words דרוש דרש to mean that Moses enquired 1) why this meat should be burned, 2) why it should be eaten. This seems a far-fetched way of understanding the verse. What would have been the point in enquiring why the meat should be burned seeing it had been burned already instead of having been eaten? One needs to find a suitable answer to this comment of the Torat Kohanim.

וידבר אהרון אל משה. Aaron spoke (harshly) to Moses. Torat Kohanim reminds us that the word דבר invariably signals harsh talk. Why was Aaron justified in adopting this tone of voice when speaking to Moses? Moses had not even addressed him, much less criticised him! Perhaps Aaron had felt slighted by Moses' angry reproof in verse 16-17 to his sons why they had not eaten the meat of the sin-offering. Moses' accusation did not sound unlike a curse. Aaron felt that at a time when he was still in shock from the death of his two older sons and Satan had a relatively free hand that such an accusation would endanger the lives of his surviving sons. Aaron's outburst may therefore be interpreted as the complaint of a father whose feelings of mercy towards his children have been aroused.

הן היום, "behold, this very day, etc." Our sages in Zevachim 101 understand this expression as follows: "did Eleazar and Ittamar offer the sin-offerings this day, a day when they are prohibited of performing the service seeing their brothers have not yet been interred and this is why you acuse them of have burned the meat? It was I who have offered the sacrifice and in my capacity as High Priest I am entitled to perform this sacrifice even while in mourning for my sons who have not yet been interred!" The implication is "why did you accuse my sons of something they have not been guilty of at all?"

The plain meaning of the verse is this: הן היום הקריבו, Nadav and Avihu offered their burnt-offerings and their sin-offerings in the presence of the Lord this very day. Aaron reminded Moses that he was an אונן, a mourner who had not yet commenced the mourning rites as his sons had not yet been buried ואכלתי חטאת היום, He went on: "If I had eaten the regular sin-offering this day?" i.e. the sin-offering which is offered on every New Moon. This was Aaron's way of hinting that there is a difference between eating of the meal-offering which was a one-time offering and eating of the sin-offering which was part of a cycle of regular public offerings. He questioned: "would it have been pleasing in the eyes of the Lord if I had eaten this offering?"

Perhaps we can prove from here under what circumstances a disciple is permitted to give a halachic ruling in the presence of his teacher instead of referring the problem to the teacher first. I have seen a comment by the רא"ש on Eyruvin 63 that in the situation quoted of Ravina examining the knife of a ritual slaughterer in a location some distance removed from his teacher Rav Ashi, that in such a situation the teacher may be presumed not to feel that his dignity has been offended. [The subject matter discussed in the Talmud there is the permissibility of students giving halachic rulings in the area presided over by their teacher. The standard opinion is that even a relatively simple query such as if one may use a fully formed egg found inside a hen after one has slaughtered it together with milk, the query must be submitted to the local Rabbi. Ed.] At any rate, it seems that Aaron had taken it upon himself to give a ruling and thereby offended the honour of Moses his teacher. Perhaps we can answer this by saying that Aaron's decision was not really what we call a halachic ruling. Aaron had simply used logic. We know from Deut. 26,14 that the farmer had to declare that he had not eaten of the second tithes or the like while in a state of אנינות, pre-mourning. Seeing that the level of sanctity of such tithes was on a far lower level than that of the sin-offering, Aaron simply reasoned that he would most certainly be forbidden to partake of the meat of that offering (compare Rashi on Yuma 5 and Zevachim 101). He himself had been taught the law about the tithes by Moses. All he had done therefore was apply what Moses had taught him to a different situation. He had therefore thought that Moses himself had instructed him to burn the meat seeing there was no one authorised to eat it. This is much less than the example given in the Talmud about the egg found within the chicken we mentioned earlier. It is worthwile to study what Tossaphot have to say on that subject in Eyruvin 62.

וישמע משה וייב בעיניו. Moses heard this and it was pleasing in his eyes. Why had Moses either forgotten or been unaware of such a simple halachah as that one has to distinguish between the degrees of sanctity of one-time offerings and that of regular offerings? If Moses was aware of an argument why such a differentiation should not be made, why did he accept Aaron's reasoning instead of trying to convince him that his own argument was correct? Moses had no right to command Aaron to either eat or burn sacrificial meat unless he was convinced that the halachah demanded this. His anger against Aaron and his sons was not caused by his conviction that they had committed an halachic error, but merely because he did not think they had adequate reason to burn up that meat. Alternatively, as suggested by Zevachim 101, he may have thought that all three of them had become ritually impure preventing them from consuming the meat of the sin-offering. According to the Talmud, Moses had enquired if something had gone wrong during the sprinkling of the blood or whether for some reason the animal had left the precincts of the Tabernacle. All of these events would have been due to some degree of negligence on the part of the priests and would have given Moses reason to be angry. Once Aaron had countered by citing the logic which had prompted him to make the decision to burn the meat Moses was put at ease. He realised that Aaron had not burned the meat until he had correctly judged the circumstances which demanded such action. If Aaron had not had logic going for his decision, it would indeed have been difficult to decide whose considerations were weightier; as it was, Moses was entitled to accept the קל וחומר Aaron had learned. When the Torah said וייטב בעיניו, this means that Moses approved of the meat having been burned. It is also possible that the words refer to Moses now approving of Aaron having made the decision without consulting him.

Another approach would focus on the first words in the verse, i.e. "Moses heard." This may mean that Moses had heard from G'd about the difference between the degree of sanctity of one-time offerings and those of regular offerings. As a result he approved of what Aaron had done, i.e. וייטב בעיניו. You may counter by saying that if Moses had heard the הלכה from G'd why had he been angry at Aaron? Perhaps he was angry because he himself had not yet told Aaron about this and he thought that Aaron had done what he did without adequate reason. It is also possible that Moses who was able to receive prophetic revelations at any time (as we know from Numbers 9,8: "stand still and I will hear what G'd will command") now received word from G'd as to the correct procedure; as a result he was pleased to have G'd confirm that Aaron had acted correctly.

Torat Kohanim on our verse writes as follows: "Rav Yehudah said that as long as Rabbi Chananiah son of Yehudah was alive he used to explain that anger is a terrible affliction as it caused Moses to err. Seeing that Rabbi Chananiah is dead already, I feel I must respond to what he said. Anger did not cause Moses to err but his error caused Moses to become angry." Why did Rav Yehudah say that "Rabbi Chananiah said as long as he was alive etc.?" Why did he interpret events differently from Rav Yehudah whose opinion seems psychologically more sound and seems better supported by the text? We must also analyse why Rav Yehudah waited until after Rabbi Chananiah's death before he took issue with his explanation. It seems that both Rav Yehudah and Rabbi Chananiah ben Yehudah intended to be complimentary to Moses by their statements. The fact is that what happened can be explained by two different approaches. 1) Forgetting what G'd had said to Moses; it does not reflect credit on someone of Moses' stature if we were to accuse him of having forgotten some instruction G'd had taught him. 2) Moses became angry at the surviving sons of Aaron and spoke harshly with them as reported in our verse. In fact he was also angry at Aaron but he expressed this by speaking to Aaron's sons; he did not criticise Aaron to his face. Rabbi Chananiah chose to attribute Moses' having forgotten a הלכה as due to his anger, an inadvertent sin, as he did not want to accuse Moses of simply having forgotten something G'd had told him. We find a similar approach in Sifri Mattot 31,21 where Rabbi Eleazar ben Azaryah quoted three occasions when Moses was reported as becoming angry and we find in each case that he committed an error. Numbers 31,14 describes Moses as angry at Eleazar the High Priest. The anger is not reported as caused by an error on his part. We therefore have to find a different reason to explain Moses becoming angry at the sons of Aaron. The reason had to be the failure of the sons of Aaron and Aaron himself to request a ruling from Moses before deciding to burn the meat. Moses' anger caused him to rule incorrectly and to tell them to eat the meat. Moses was convinced at the time that he had ruled correctly and that the sacrificial meat was fit for consumption by priests in their condition. (The author adds: "Rabbi Chananiah's reasoning is not compatible with the explanation I gave earlier that Moses simply told Aaron that he had good reason to rule differently from him and was in doubt about the issue").

Rav Yehudah did not want to contradict Rabbi Chananiah outright and to reject his explanation as wrong. All he wanted to do was to come to the defence of Moses by pointing out that error need not necessarily be the result of anger. He did so because one can argue that anger is more of a negative virtue than forgetting something one has been told by G'd. It may therefore be preferable to explain what happened in terms of Moses simply having forgotten a relevant הלכה. When he realised he had forgotten the הלכה, Moses became angry once he had the feeling that Aaron and his sons had not acted in accordance with G'd's will. His anger had nothing whatsoever to do with his own honour or dignity. Rav Yehudah did not feel that this explanation was the only possible one; rather he felt that it was no less likely than that offfered by Rabbi Chananiah. After all, one could explain Moses' anger without implicating him in something unbecoming and one could explain his forgetting without Moses' image suffering much in our eyes as a result. This is why Rav Yehudah did not voice his dissent until after Rabbi Chananiah had died. Rabbi Chananiah had not shared Rav Yehudah's view that one could allow for both considerations but insisted that Moses' error could only be explained in terms of his having first become angry. The text of the Sifri states: הרני כמשיב על דבריו meaning that Rav Yehudah appeared to dissent. [Our text of the Sifri does not have the letter כ mentioned by the author. Ed.] This version of the text is compatible with the view we have expressed. One may also understand Rav Yehudah as having most definitely held the view that Moses only became angry because he had erred and presumed that Aaron and his sons had sinned by burning the meat. One may err by simply not concentrating on a problem, i.e. by הסח הדעת, being absent-minded. This is something quite inadvertent. One cannot, however, become angry and be absent-minded at the same time. Anger, by definition, implies that one has one's mind on the subject of one's anger. Whereas a sin associated with anger is one that is considered מזיד, the result of an action one is aware of, the same is not the case when the sin is the result of one's having forgotten something. Furthermore, if we say that Moses erred, i.e. forgot something, the result of his forgetting did not result in a sin occurring at all. If we perceive Moses as having been irritated by the actions of Aaron and his sons his anger was caused by this and this anger was an outright sin. Rav Yehudah chose to portray Moses' anger as having been caused by an error not by his irritation. In this way he helped us maintain a better image of Moses. If he said that he disagreed with Rabbi Chananiah after the latter's death, this did not mean that he had not voiced his disagreement during his lifetime, but that even after Rabbi Chananiah's death he still felt that he had to go on record as disagreeing with Rabbi Chananiah. Alternatively, Rav Yehudah may have not voiced his dissent until after Rabbi Chananiah died because he was afraid that Rabbi Chananiah would offer proof that he was right, something he could no longer do after he had died.